Jim Delany did not mention his negotiation practices during this press conference. (US Presswire)
Good news, Rutgers and Maryland fans, your schools will be joining the Big Ten in 2014, bringing a nice influx of that cold hard cash into your athletic departments. It's just too bad you might not be able to watch all of their games once they've joined the Big Ten.

Yes, that's right, according to Sports Business Journal, the Big Ten is considering keeping Maryland and Rutgers games -- both football and basketball -- off of its own Big Ten Network in an effort to get local cable companies to place the network on their basic tiers.

Just another reminder that conference realignment is about nothing more than eyeballs staring at televisions, which produces money whether those eyeballs know it or not.

At the moment the Big Ten Network is available in the home markets of both Maryland and Rutgers, but it's located on sports tiers that are optional to cable subscribers. However, at the moment cable subscribers outside the Big Ten market are paying about 15 cents a month for the network. Once the network hits the basic package in the Big Ten markets, that jumps up to 80 cents a month.

So that means for every million cable subscribers in those markets -- subscribers, not people actually watching the Big Ten Network, just those with cable -- the Big Ten will make an additional $650,000 a month, or $7.8 million a year.

Between New York City, New Jersey, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., there are roughly 18.1 million people. If only 50 percent of those people have cable that's nearly $5.9 million a month for the Big Ten Network.

So if you still had any questions about why the Big Ten would choose Rutgers and Maryland, it's probably a bit clearer now.

Also, this is not the first time the Big Ten has used such tactics. It threatened to do the same thing with Nebraska before it joined the conference as well. Of course, there wasn't much resistance from the cable companies in Nebraska as their customer base would not have been happy without their Cornhusker games available on television.

However, it will be pretty interesting to see whether or not New York cable companies even bat an eye when threatened with the possibility of losing Rutgers games.

But let's say that the 7 Catholic schools break away and form a mid-major basketball conference. Do they try to entice Xavier, Dayton, Butler, Richmond, and St. Louis to join? If those schools did join a new basketball-only Big East that would make it one hell of a basketball conference.

To me, the Catholic school only basketball conference never made much sense because they're going to make less money in that kind of a conference than they would in the current Big East. Ultimately those schools are going to go where the money is since that's what this is all about. There have been rumors that those 7 schools are going to join the A10 which are also getting squashed, understandably because they make no sense. I could kind of see it for Seton Hall and DePaul but Georgetown, Marquette, St. Johns, Villanova, and Providence have had recent success either on the hardwood or the recruiting trail and it's tough to go from playing at the Carrier Dome to playing at a lot of the current A10 schools.

The recent rumor I've seen that makes sense is that the 7 basketball schools would try to dissolve the Big East so they could keep the name, add St. Louis, Dayton, Butler, Xavier, and VCU, and then bring in Memphis, Temple, Cincinnati, and UConn. Would be a really good basketball conference for sure. Certainly the schools that play FBS football would want out if they got a big conference invite, but in the meantime that's a really solid basketball conference.

Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) tweeted at 11:53 PM on Wed, Dec 12, 2012:
BIg East hoops schools expected to release statement on future plans in coming days. Source told @espn would be an "upset" if they remained

Scoop: The seven Catholic, non-Football Bowl Subdivision schools in the Big East Conference are expected to make an announcement on their future with the conference by Friday.

Significance: The non-football schools: Marquette, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Villanova, Seton Hall and DePaul, currently have enough hold to vote to dissolve the once powerful conference.

Story: ESPN’s Brett McMurphy, Andy Katz and Dana O’Neil reported on Wednesday night that the seven non-football schools in the Big East Conference are leaning towards leaving the conference. The presidents of the seven schools met with Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco in New York to discuss the future of the conference. According to sources, the seven schools are “close to a consensus on what they want to do next.” The schools can all leave the conference together, with the Atlantic-10 potentially set to clean up the pieces.

There is also the option of voting to dissolve the conference. There are only 10 current members of the Big East that can vote for such a move; the non-football schools with UConn, Cincinnati and South Florida – the three schools besides Louisville that tried to get an invite into the Atlantic Coast Conference. UConn President Susan Herbst has been pleading with the non-football schools to stay, but it appears that by Friday, the Big East could cease to exist.

Well, that is interesting if they dissolve the conference. The ACC is in line to have 14 teams (15 if you include Notre Dame). Maybe they'd take a package deal of UCF and USF to get to 16.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolidGold

Bortlezzzzzzz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monomach

Brilliant letting one of Scott Pioli's henchmen have his own team to ruin. One of the premier GM jobs in the NFL and it gets handed to a stupid **** who makes three facepalm moves for every good one. Awesome. Just like handing a new Mercedes to a 16 year old girl who's already been in three wrecks.

There's a lot of questions that will need to be answered with the separation of the Catholic 7 and the rest of the Big East...
Who keeps the name?
Can the Catholic 7 keep MSG?
Who do the football members add as all-sports members to get the Olympic sports back to 10-12 members?
Do they go back to hybrid?
What does Boise State and San Diego State do now?
Will Navy still join in 2015?
Who does the Catholic 7 add to round out there numbers?
How many schools do they invite? 3? 5? 7?
Who gets the payout from the exit fees? Is it just going to be split between USF, UConn, and Cincinnati?

Interesting, wonder what changed there. Also curious about what schools get added to that conference. Would be interesting if Gonzaga finds their way in. Xavier seems like a gimme if they want to join. St. Louis is probably likely.

RT @McMurphyESPN: "San Diego State expected to be reinstated to MWC today, remain all sports member & not join Big East"

Ugh... I hope this is more proof to UCF that they need to go back to C-USA. The Big East is dead within the next two years (if not sooner). No reason to waste millions of dollars on a buyout to go to a dead conference.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolidGold

Bortlezzzzzzz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monomach

Brilliant letting one of Scott Pioli's henchmen have his own team to ruin. One of the premier GM jobs in the NFL and it gets handed to a stupid **** who makes three facepalm moves for every good one. Awesome. Just like handing a new Mercedes to a 16 year old girl who's already been in three wrecks.

Ugh... I hope this is more proof to UCF that they need to go back to C-USA. The Big East is dead within the next two years (if not sooner). No reason to waste millions of dollars on a buyout to go to a dead conference.

The Big East is still a much better option than what C-USA is now. It's basically C-USA 10 years ago, before they started adding crappy Sun Belt teams.